Providing sport metrics at events is desirable from the viewpoint of audience participation and TV viewership. Providing sports metrics in an objective format is also desirable from the viewpoint of judging and assessing athletic capability. One object of the invention is to provide sport metrics to audiences and TV in near real-time.
The invention of one aspect provides a system for measuring sports metrics at an event or venue. The system includes xe2x80x9cnxe2x80x9d sensors, xe2x80x9cmxe2x80x9d repeaters, a base station and an operations terminal. One or more sensors attach to each athlete (and/or the athletes vehicle) at the event or venue to determine a sports metric, e.g., airtime, g""s, drop distance, spin, rotation. The information about the sports metric is transmitted to one or more repeaters; and that information is relayed to the base station. The operations terminal provides a user interface, and may further interface with a judging station or TV to provide the sports metric, in near real-time, to judges, viewers and others at the event or venue.
In operation, sensors communicate sports metric data to the repeater. The repeater relays data to the base station, and the operations terminal collects the sports metric data for use by an operator.
Typically such data are communicated frequently and at least once per second. By way of example, one sports metric is airtime. In accord with one aspect, a sensor detects a take off event and that information is transmitted to a repeater. In another aspect, the sensor detects a landing and that information is transmitted to a repeater. The time between the take off event and landing event is the airtime. Transmitting the take off time separately permits a real time display of airtime data to TV when the athlete is in the air, a desirable feature. In still another aspect, the sensor calculates the airtime data from the take off event and the landing event; and the airtime data itself is communicated to a repeater.
In one aspect, each sensor has a processor (e.g., Microchip PIC 17C7XX), at least one and preferably three or more accelerometers (e.g., ADXL digital accelerometers from Analog Devices), an RF section (e.g., TX900SR from RF Laboratories, Inc.), and a battery. Preferably, the RF section is programmable in the 900 MHz or 433 MHz region. In one aspect, the RF section transmits spread spectrum information. In another aspect, the RF section is programmable for one or more channels in the selected MHz region. In still another aspect, the RF section transmits in a first channel and a second channel, selectively, to transmit data in a redundant fashion.
In one aspect, the RF section is temperature controlled to account for temperature variations, so that sensors continue to communicate to repeaters even though temperature differences exist between the sensor and repeater.
In another aspect, one or more accelerometers have DC capability to detect free fall. Free fall is used to determine airtime, in one aspect of the invention. Free fall information may also be used to augment other techniques of determining airtime, such as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,960,380 and 5,636,146, each of which is incorporated by reference.